Nicole S. Silvers

The technique is one for advanced handlers.  Beginning handlers, you have enough on your mind!  You'll get to this later, and all will work out just fine.

Although the practice is typically associated with positive-punishment (pain)-only training, the concept is valid, even if the pain is unnecessary.  The idea is to provide contrast.  Elicit or at least deliberately provide the opportunity for the dog to give a WRONG answer, mark it with an NRM (non-reward marker), WITHHOLD reward (or, in other words "negatively punish"), then elicit the correct response and reward it.

An astute reader of my recent blog article, Beyond the Click, noted that I alluded to the idea that all training incorporates an element of force.  I'm not sure every learning interaction does, but many do.

What is force?

Force is the denial of access.  Force is the opposite of persuasion, free choice.  Confining, restraining, even insisting that the animal work for its daily ration of food are all acts of force.  Intentional breedings could even be considered forceful, since the animal is typically denied free choice of alternative pairings.  The leash, the muzzle, even the collar, the crate, the fence are all force tools.  For some people, physical guiding is an unacceptable level of compulsion.  

Socialization, building a dog's ability to adapt to new experiences without fear, is recognized by most people as the fundamental skill a pet dog needs to acquire.  It's a time-consuming process, but fairly simple.  Your dog is rewarded for choosing to experience new things.  Temple Grandin expressed the idea beautifully:  fear and curiosity are opposites.  Build curiosity, dampen fear.

If you wanted to make your dog completely anti-social, how would you do it?  You'd convey the idea that anything new or interesting, anything that arouses curiosity, is very, very dangerous and painful.  Every time your dog approached something, you'd zap the hell out it.  If you were lazy, you'd construct a machine to do it for you.  Lucky for you, such devices already exist:  the Shock Collar "Fence".  It's easier than ever to give your dog some serious fear-biter potential.

The essence of learning, whether you are dog or human or goldfish, is the ability to identify a pattern.  When I lower my rump to the group, my crate door opens.  When I produce a treat, my dog "listens".  Like Rachel Ray says, Easy peasy!!

For owners, pattern identification behavior can fall into one of two extremes.  Typically, these extremes arise from a lack of understanding, a lack of ability to identify relevant, effective predictors of behavior.

One such extreme is the owner who is genuinely surprised EVERY time the 5-year-old dog jumps up to greet humans (or some other "undesirable" behavior).  This owner is, well, almost a cliche.